A troubled Ghanaian fish farmer expressed his distress over the adverse effects of the country’s unreliable power supply on his business.
During an emotional testimony, he highlighted the devastating impact of extended power outages, recounting the loss of an $8,000 machine crucial to his aquaculture operations.
In a heartfelt plea to Accra-based Joy FM’s Super Morning Show, the farmer, his voice filled with despair, described how recent power fluctuations caused severe damage to his oxygen-generating machine, vital for sustaining the health of his fish stock.
“The business I ran is being grounded,” he lamented, citing the compounding challenges of currency depreciation and capital depletion exacerbated by the ongoing power crisis.
“Apart from the cedi-dolar rate depreciation that is depleting my capital, I have been losing a lot of stuff because of this load-shedding. My $8,000 machine which I use to generate oxygen for my fishes just blew up 3 days ago. I have to try to be changing water for the fishes day-in-day-out to raise the oxygen level,” he lamented. “What kind of wickedness is this?”
Expressing frustration at the lack of accountability, the farmer criticized both government inaction and media oversight. He bemoaned the authorities’ failure to address the crisis promptly, juxtaposing it with the swift response to seemingly trivial matters. “Curse will be on those who are supposed to act and they are not acting,” he declared, urging for prioritization of national interests over political campaigns.
“… but look at the whole country is being taken to ransom and no ministry is taking responsibility. And I am blaming some of the media. We need to hold these people by their balls. They are causing people’s businesses, they are causing people’s lives. I’m speaking out of grief. I’ve lost $8,500 machine because of somebody’s incompetence and we have a vice president going round and campaigning to be elected and we don’t have people to stand before him and tell to go and fix the problems and get out of here with your campaign,” he added. “What kind of country are we running?”
The fisherman’s plight reflects the challenges experienced by numerous Ghanaians amid the ongoing power outages afflicting the country.
Despite directives from the Public Utilities Regulatory Commission (PURC) and the Parliament’s Energy Committee, the government has declined to issue a detailed timetable for electricity distribution via the Electricity Company of Ghana (ECG), exacerbating public frustration and economic hardship.